Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Heroes Anyone?
In the movie The General Johnnie Gray, a simple engineer,tries to win the heart of his girlfriend by enlisting in the army. Although he is refused, he eventually takes on a group of Northern soldiers who hijack his train. Not only does he rescue his beloved Anabelle (and General), but he also helps defeat a Northern army in battle. Yet, his methods are hardly standard derring-do. Is Johnnie just lucky or a true hero? Does this film endorse standard ideas of military heroism or make fun of them? Or does this movie redefine a hero? What does this movie tell us about heroism (or related concepts of machismo, chivalry, or militarism)?
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Anyone can be a hero
ReplyDeleteThe film The General, is known as one of the most funny and beautifully done movies in our history because of its real stunts without cuts and the actor’s way of portraying silent comedy. With this movie brings up a lot of discussion about the hero Johnnie Gray, who is an engineer trying to win over his girlfriend by enlisting in the army. There are many individuals who argue that this movie makes a joke out of what a true military hero is and does. These induvial could argue that the real event of the Union raid on a Confederate train was a serious time in our history where the stereotypical strong, brave military men risked their lives to save their people and their nation. Therefore, these individuals believe Johnnie is not an accurate representation of a true military hero let along a hero at all. However, what these individuals lack to realize is the idea of hope and power this movie gives its audience. This movie not only tells an important event in our history but it also tells a story of a man who may not look the part of a hero but uses his determination to become one. This idea of using comedy to tell this story is not only a way to engage an audience but is a way to reach those individuals like Johnnie who are goofy, strange and unique that they too can be a hero. If movies only portrayed strong, will-powered men or beautiful skinny women as the dominant roles than our society would be forced to learn to accept their “part” in the world and not to be someone who they don’t look or play the “part” of. From generation to generation movies are influenced by our society, and our society influences movies. This movie has influenced our society that a hero is not based upon looks or personality, but is based upon the good intensions and actions of their heart. The movie The General throws away the idea of what a hero should like and act like and gives the audience a new perspective on how anybody can be hero no matter the circumstances.
In the movie, The General, Johnnie Gray believes that to be a true man and hero you have to be in uniform. At the beginning of the film, Johnnie and his girlfriend get in a fight and she says that they cannot be together unless he enlists in the confederate army. Although he is denied from the enlistment office multiple times, that does not stop his tenacious attitude of getting involved. In the first half, everything was going wrong for Johnnie. His girlfriend ended things with him, he could not get into the army, his train was stolen, and his girlfriend was also kidnapped by Northern officers. However, Johnnie began to show qualities of a hero as he chased after Annabelle in hopes of rescuing her. He becomes persistent the second half of the movie as he stops the Northern supply trains and helps the South win a battle. At the end, Johnnie is rewarded with a general officers uniform. With this Johnnie acted very excited and surprised as to what his reward was, even Annabelle showed more affection towards him once he received this. As he acted like getting this uniform was his biggest accomplishment it proves the fact that being honorable and in the military is equivalent to being a hero, being macho, or manly and masculine. Because of the happily ever after ending it shows that the protagonist of the movie, Johnnie, has reached his goals and is satisfied. To end the movie, he had to get the general uniform because that is the manliest and heroic that he can become. It also shows that despite his rejection in the first place, if you are courageous and outgoing enough anyone can be a hero. Finally, once he reached that point of masculinity and high role in the military, he also secured his relationship with Annabelle.
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ReplyDeleteThe General is a film that challenges the stereotypical traits that define masculinity. The movie uses the military members as the typical macho type and then uses Johnnie as the nonstandard male character. Throughout the film the audience sees the typical masculine soldiers failing to succeed. They struggle to win militarily and are unable to stop Johnnie from catching them and saving his love, Anabelle. The military men are shown to be foolish. They are made fun of as unintelligent beings, like when Johnnie throws various objects onto the railroad and the men are seen fumbling around to clean up the obstacles. Their idiocy is also displayed when Johnnie hides under their table and the men never discover him despite lifting up the table cloth and clearly exposing him. The fact that Johnnie is quite literally right beneath their noses, and they are blind enough to not see him, is a clear joke against their abilities. In contrast to the soldiers, Johnnie is a much more clever character. Throughout The General, he is able to manipulate machinery to catch up the Northern soldiers to save Anabelle. His cunningness allows him to sneak onto the army’s campsite and save his beloved. Johnnie is also able to react and think quickly when put into difficult settings. He is able to escape sticky situations like being surrounded by fire on the train tracks and evading the close death from a cannonball fire. In the end, Johnnie clearly proves to be superior to the stereotypically masculine men. He saves Anabelle and even gets the military uniform he sought after for so long. This film challenges society’s male expectations and shows how men, and people in general, can succeed while being their unique self.
The General redefines what a hero is because Johnnie Gray is an average person, but his resilience and determination makes him a hero. In the beginning of the movie, Johnnie is unable to do anything special with his life and the woman he likes rejects him because he cannot enlist in the army. However, when he noticed that an army general stole his train, he knew that the only option was to do whatever it takes to get it back. He tries to get more people to join him to try to save it, but is disheartened to find that he was the only one brave enough to keep running. This setback does not stop him because he keeps going, finds a bike, a trolley car, and eventually another train so that he can keep up the chase. He is the only one on the train and he works hard to make sure that he can keep up to the other train. This movie shows that heroes do not need to be strong or have many guns to save the day because Johnnie is able to keep up with them just as easily by using his wit. It also emphasizes the use of brain over brawn to solve problems. In one scene there are about ten military men trying to fix the track for a long time because it is broken, but the engineer is able to fix it in one stroke because he knows exactly what is wrong. In that scene, the engineer, like Johnnie, is the hero because he is able to solve problems more efficiently than anyone in the army is able to.
ReplyDeleteAn American silent comedy film, The General, encompasses many great traits including one of the lead roles of Johnnie Gray. The film takes place during the civil war, and when Johnny attempts to enlist in the army, he is denied due to his value in his former job as an engineer. Although, things quickly take a turn when the two loves of his lives are captured by the union soldiers: Annabelle Lee, and his locomotive, The General. He immediately takes action by foot and train to get them back. Because this is an action-adventure-comedy film, it may not portray a hero as many people see one ought to be. Through his chase on the train, he runs into many comedic obstacles where the two sides sabotage one another in order to win the battle. Though, he manages to overcome all of them, while also defeating the Northern soldiers. I think the film somewhat makes fun of military heroism, as it is hard to take the film seriously. There is an abundant amount of running around and chasing each other, rather than structure and order, which is expected of military heroism. This film tells us that a hero is one that would fight for their love, no matter what stands in their way. Johnny is clearly motivated through his love for Annabelle and The General, who ends up saving them through heroism. Overall, this film may give off the sense of a comedic military battle, but Johnny Gray is a hero who fought for his love.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I originally wouldn’t classify Johnnie Gray as a hero due to his lack of leadership and inspirational qualities, a closer analysis of the movie, The General, shows how Johnnie is indeed a hero, just an unconventional one. Usually, heroes such as Martin Luther King Jr, Superman, or even your parents possess a natural ability to lead people towards a change or help improve the lives of many and often inspires others to do great deeds. For example, MLK paved the road for equality, Superman led his team to save the world, and your parents guided you towards adulthood. Johnnie Gray, on the other hand, is unobservant and just plain lucky, which takes away all the hard work of actual heroes. However, he did risk his life to rescue his girlfriend and took down an entire army, which are things that most conventional heroes would do. The movie, The General, essentially defines a new type of hero: the accidental one. An accidental hero is a person who is lucky enough to be at the right place and the right time to save the day. Similarly to their counterpart, accidental heroes also follow a "Hero's Journey", which is a detailed character arc for a hero. A "Hero's Journey" contains three distinct acts where a character slowly develops into a hero. The first section is known as the ordinary world, where it is the safe place for the protagonist. The next section is known as the special world, where the protagonist is introduced to a conflict and must take action in a new world. The last section is where the protagonist returns to his familiar world as a changed person and a hero. In the film, Johnnie starts off in his familiar world. He is living a normal life with his girlfriend and enjoys his job as an engineer. However, he receives a call to action to fight for the south against the north and must enter a new territory. Despite Johnnie not getting enlisted as a soldier, he still crossed over to the enemy territory to retrieve his train. Throughout his time there, he was able to fight off his enemies and rescue his beloved Annabelle. Once Johnnie returns to his familiar world, he once again enters the enemy territory to fight and returns as a general for the south. Although Johnnie's actions were unintentional, he still followed the path that many heroes took and were able to save the day. The way that the movie incorporated this "Hero's Journey" structure in its plot shows that Johnnie is intended to be a hero, despite his carelessness and luckiness. Johnnie as an accidental hero tells us that one doesn’t have to be chivalrous or macho to be a hero, they just have to be successful on their journey to and back from the special world, while also saving the day.
ReplyDeleteIn its time, The General didn’t redefined heroism, but rather defined the modern day interpretation of a hero in popular culture and movies. The traditional “hero” plot we imagine today involves an unsuspecting person, or an underdog, going through obstacles to accomplish his goal and/or “get the girl”. It is established early on Johnnie Gray’s social status relevant to his love interest. He is rejected for being an engineer and not participating in the war; the girl is not interested in him because he isn’t a traditional manly soldier. His first obstacle involves attempting to enlist in the army, but being denied from the southern army because he is too valuable as an engineer. Later, when he saved Anabelle from her northern captors, he takes a uniform from the opposing sides army to blend in and prove his worth as a soldier. Ultimately, Buster’s character overhears plans of an impending attack and aims to warn his native army. In the end, Johnnie both proves himself as a man and wins Anabelle’s interest. Through “The General”, Keaton starts an early conversation on toxic masculinity and what it truly means to be a man, while it isn’t fleshed out entirely. Essentially, Johnnie represents an atypical definition of a man, but through accomplishing his objectives, reinforces to the audiences that there is more depth to the definition of what a man is than just the physical, stereotypical qualities. Yet, his story is consistent to the hero narrative today. Johnnie was established as the wrong person for Anabelle and the war, but he ultimately preserves and accomplishes his goals, proving himself to be a hero. Overall, Keaton argues through this early comedy that anyone, regardless of their job or strength, can be a hero with hard work and determination, while providing commentary on the definition of a true man, as well.
ReplyDeleteIn The General, Johnnie Gray is not only shown to upend the norms by which a hero is defined, but he also continually makes fools of military men, redefining the idea of what a hero should be. Through his rejection from the military due to his engineer status, the Southern generals are actually proven right: Johnnie is more valuable to the South as an engineer rather than a fighter. He expertly uses his knowledge of trains and the rails to singlehandedly save the damsel and outwit the entire Northern army. With regards to the Northern army, they are the butt of a good bit of the films jokes. They are often shown to be incompetent, when they couldn’t fix the railway, foolhardy, when the General decided to cross the flaming bridge, and nonobservant, when the man lit the tablecloth on fire with his cigar. Militarism is painted as brutish and hard-headed throughout the whole film, and Johnnie takes advantage of it. Although in some cases, like his sword flying off the handle and hitting a Northern soldier, he is shown to be a bit luckily clumsy, while riding the rails he is in his element. While the movie begins by poking fun at his lackluster frame, the movie ends with the lesson that using your brain is more important than using your brawn. Traditionally heroes have been Achilles-esque, resembling more Greek God than man, but Johnnie shows that by outsmarting your opponent and never giving them a chance to strike, you can win without throwing a punch.
ReplyDeleteWhile The General’s Johnnie Gray is not a traditional hero, he does have some heroic traits. Still, these traits are not enough to label him as a true hero. Let us first examine the differences between Johnnie and traditional heroes. A traditional hero is someone who is skilled—a person with the intelligence to defeat their opponents. In contrast, Johnnie has to come up with haphazard plans on the spot when Union forces try to thwart his chase. For example, the famous scene of Johnnie sitting on the cowcatcher, picking up railroad ties, shows his tendency to get into dangerous situations. A traditional hero would formulate a surefire plan to achieve their goals. However, Johnnie opts for a plan that is risky at best and preposterous at worst. Clearly, Johnnie is not a traditional hero. However, he still has some heroic traits. Johnnie’s determination is especially impressive—his willingness to carry out dangerous plans, like sitting on the cowcatcher, actually shows his drive to save Annabelle and defeat the Union. The reason why Johnnie cannot be classified as a hero is that the film clearly portrays him as foolish. One example is the scene of Johnnie inadvertently soaking Annabelle when he opens up the water tank. A hero would never make such a mistake. The end of the movie is also a glaring example of Johnnie’s foolishness. While embracing Annabelle and celebrating his victory, he is approached by a line of Confederate soldiers. He awkwardly salutes the soldiers while kissing Annabelle as the movie closes. This is in stark contrast with the collected demeanor usually exemplified by heroes. For these reasons, Johnnie is not a true hero despite his possession of some heroic traits, like determination.
ReplyDeleteA hero is someone who has a set of morals, and chooses to fight for what they feel is right. Johnnie Gray, although portrayed as clumsy and unintelligent, at least knows his right from wrong. Johnnie Gray, after his girlfriend gets captured by the Union Army, risks his own life on multiple occasions to save her. He even puts his life on the line in situations so dauntingly hopeless that a person should not be able to escape with their life, let alone rescue the girl in the end. The controversy over whether not Johnnie is a hero or not lies with how he is able to complete his heroic tasks. Some may argue that because he is a bumbling buffoon, and cannot complete any task without his dumb blind luck, that he can never be a hero. I say those points do not matter. A hero, as defined earlier, is someone who chooses to put their life on the line and fight for their core values, and although Johnnie Gray should have died due to his idiocy multiple times throughout the film, to me he can still be classified as a hero because he, no matter how stupidly he chose to do it, put his life on the line for his morals and the people he holds dear. Although he is a hero, I do not believe that this film is a proponent of chivalry. Despite following a story of chivalry to the wire, The General chooses to mock it at every step of the way, usually through slapstick comedy and implausible/impossible outcomes.
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